Das, Kamala; K Satch1danandan;
Only the soul knows how to sing
D C Books, 1996 / 2009, 140 pages
ISBN 8171306357, 9788171306350
topics: | poetry | indian-english | gender
a selection of das's poems from her various collections; it's like you put some fistfuls of rAjmA into a tin can, shake it to level, add a few more, and cap it with a preface by K Satch1danandan. there is nothing to say who selected them, on what basis, how they are ordered. nor does it have an index of first lines, titles, whatever... ok, we realize that das was alive then, so she may be the one who did this deed. but then it might just as well have been some admirers... it would be nice to know what went on in the mind while putting this together... as mentioned, there is an introduction - called a preface - by K Satch1danandan - but this is quite oblivious of the book itself, and is even (in parts) condescending: Indian women poets writing in English, to whose ever-growing tribe Kamala Das belongs... at least for the present generation of poets of indian english, two volumes that stand out, by any canons of poetry, are by women - Anjum Hasan's Street on the hill (2006), and Sampurna Chattarji's Sight may strike you blind (2007). Of these, Hasan's style - direct, earthy, juxtaposed observations, is closer to Das; Chattarji is more thoughtful. in contrast, i do not see that many good men poets breaking ground. our best poets are women. perhaps we need to have a discourse about why men can't write as well.
At sunset, on the river bank, Krishna Loved her for the last time and left… That night in her husband’s arms, Radha felt So dead that he asked, What is wrong, Do you mind my kisses, love? And she said, No, not at all, but thought, What is It to the corpse if the maggots nip? (From The Descendants)
What is this drink but The April sun, squeezed Like an orange in My glass? I sip the Fire, I drink and drink Again, I am drunk Yes, but on the gold of suns, What noble venom now flows through my veins and fills my mind with unhurried laughter? My worries doze. Wee bubblesring my glass, like a brides nervous smile, and meet my lips. Dear, forgive this moments lull in wanting you, the blur in memory. How brief the term of my devotion, how brief your reign when i with glass in hand, drink, drink, and drink again this Juice of April suns.
Getting a man to love you is easy Only be honest about your wants as Woman. Stand nude before the glass with him So that he sees himself the stronger one And believes it so, and you so much more Softer, younger, lovelier. Admit your Admiration. Notice the perfection Of his limbs, his eyes reddening under The shower, the shy walk across the bathroom floor, Dropping towels, and the jerky way he Urinates. All the fond details that make Him male and your only man. Gift him all, Gift him what makes you woman, the scent of Long hair, the musk of sweat between the breasts, The warm shock of menstrual blood, and all your Endless female hungers. Oh yes, getting A man to love is easy, but living Without him afterwards may have to be Faced. A living without life when you move Around, meeting strangers, with your eyes that Gave up their search, with ears that hear only His last voice calling out your name and your Body which once under his touch had gleamed Like burnished brass, now drab and destitute.
There was a time when our lusts were Like multicoloured flags of no Particular country. We lay On bed, glassy-eyed, fatigued, just The toys dead children leave behind And, we asked each other, what is The use, what is the bloody use? That was the only kind of love, This hacking at each other’s parts Like convicts hacking, breaking clods At noon. We were earth under hot Sun. There was a burning in our Veins and the cool mountain nights did Nothing to lessen heat. When he And I were one, we were neither Male nor female. There were no more Words left, all words lay imprisoned In the ageing arms of night. In Darkness we grew, as in silence We sang, each note rising out of Sea, out of wind, out of earth and Out of each sad night like an ache…
Fond husband, ancient settler in the mind, Old fat spider, weaving webs of bewilderment, Be kind. You turn me into a bird of stone, a granite Dove, you build round me a shabby room, And stroke my pitted face absent-mindedly while You read. With loud talk you bruise my pre-morning sleep, You stick a finger into my dreaming eye. And Yet, on daydreams, strong men cast their shadows, they sink Like white suns in the swell of my Dravidian blood, Secretly flow the drains beneath sacred cities. When you leave, I drive my blue battered car Along the bluer sea. I run up the forty Noisy steps to knock at another's door. Though peep-holes, the neighbours watch, they watch me come And go like rain. Ask me, everybody, ask me What he sees in me, ask me why he is called a lion, A libertine, ask me why his hand sways like a hooded snake Before it clasps my pubis. Ask me why like A great tree, felled, he slumps against my breasts, And sleeps. Ask me why life is short and love is Shorter still, ask me what is bliss and what its price....
when i am with my friends and talking i remember him and suddenly i can no longer talk they ask me what is wrong why have you turned pale and i weakly shake my head nothing nothing... .i was warned not to go near the king but i did go and believe me he was like a man like any man he clutched me to his breast he said he loved me and i was happy and thought he was happy too.... after a year two yellow moons waxed and waned without a sign of blood and i told him lying on his lap i told him and suddenly the sun set on that beautiful face his breath was heavy in my ear he said not a word .... he no longer calls for me he no longer comes to me or stands at the open window to smile at me but everywhere i look i see him everywhere i do not look i see him i see him in all i see him in everything like a blue bird at sunset he flits across my sky....
There was then no death, no end, but a re-uniting The weary body settling into accustomed grooves And, he said, his soft, suffering face against my knee I knew you would survive, my darling, I willed it so. He had noticed the high greens of my illness, the bones Turning sharp beneath the dry loose skin, the yellowed eyes The fetid breath and the prayers to unfamiliar Gods Who seemed to him so much more beloved than he. Did he feel the neglect while I battled with my pain ? Did he, waking alone at four, remember? There was Not much flesh left for the flesh to hunger, the blood had Weakened too much to lust, and the skin, without health's Anointments, was numb and unyearning. What lusted then For him, was it perhaps the deeply hidden soul ?
We left that old ungainly house When my dog died there, after The burial, after the rose Flowered twice, pulling it by its Roots and carting it with our books, Clothes and chairs in a hurry. We live in a new house now, And, the roofs do not leak, but, when It rains here, I see the rain drench That empty house, I hear it fall Where my puppy now lies, Alone..
Transcending the body (Preface by K Satch1danandan) 11 1. Composition 25 2. Wood ash 34 3. The swamp 35 4. The old playhouse 38 5. The lunatic asylum 39 6. Morning at Apollo Pier 40 7. Sleeping in the Moonlight 41 8. A Hand Like a Bonsai 42 9. Feline 43 10. Fath1ma 44 11. Delhi 1984 44 12. Words 45 13. The motif in the Mirror 45 14. The dalit Panther 46 15. Farewell to bombat 47 16. The stranger and I 48 17. Too late for Making up 49 18. Terror 50 19. The gulmohur 51 20. The maggots 52 21. The seashore 53 22. A phone call in the Morning 54 23. Weeds 54 24. Summer in Calcutta 55 25. The Ancient Mango Tree 56 ... why did they cut down the ancient mango tree where I had hung damp nets of dreams to dry? My boat can no more go afishing.. 26. At Chiangi Airport 56 27. My Sons 57 28. The Anamalai Hills 58 29. The Freaks 59 30. A Losing Battle 59 31. The Wild Bougainvillae 60 32. The Flag 61 33. Loud Posters 63 34. Palam 63 35. Death is so Mediocre 64 36. Substitute 65 37. The Sunshine Cat 67 38. The Looking Glass 68 39. Convicts 69 40. Jaisurya 70 41. The house builders 71 42. Smoke in colombo 72 43. Fear 72 44. The Sea at galle fac e green 73 45. Per1peurperal insanity 74 46. A holiday for me 75 47. Tomorrow 75 48. I shall not forget 76 49. Radha 77 50. The inheritance 77 51. Ferns 78 52. Cerebral thrombosis 79 53. The intensive cardiac care unit 79 54. The survivor 80 55. Luminol 81 56. A man a season 81 57. The stone age 82 58. Krishna 82 59. The millionaires at Marine drive 83 60. The time of the drought 84 61. Herons 85 62. The Dance of the eunuchs 85 63. Pigeons 86 64. The fear of the year 87 65. After the party 88 66. Blood 89 67. Speech 93 68. After july 94 69. Nani 95 70. Grey hound 96 71. Words are birds 96 72. Requiem for a son 97 73. A souvenir of bone 99 74. The descendants 101 75. A half-day's bewitchment 102 76. The sensuous Woman ill 103 77. Life's obscure parallel 104 78. A request 104 79. Women's shuttles 105 80. Old cattle 105 81. The last act 106 82. The suicide 107 83. In love 111 84. The first meeting 112 85. Summer 1980 113 86. Captive 113 87. Gino 114 88. A phantom lotus 116 89. Flotsam 116 90. Ghanashyam 117 91. An introduction 119 92. The bison at the water's edge 121 93. A relationship 123 94. The siesta 124 95. Winter 125 96. To a big brother (about to be married) 125 97. The end of spring 126 98. Ischaema in august 127 99. Love 127 100. Vrindavan 128 101. The prisoner 128 102. Autumn leaves 129 103. Sunset, blue bird 129 104. Cat in the gutter 130 105. After the illness 130 106. Glass 131 107. If death is your wish 131 108. Radha krishna 132 109. A short trip 132 110. Home is a concept 133 111. The ferry 133 112. The fatalists on stone benches 134 113. The word is sin 134 114. Kumar gandharva 135 115. The ferry hour 135 116. Anamala1 poems 136 117. Larger than life was he 141 118. A requiem for my father 143 119. My father's death 146 120. Next to ind1ra gandhi 148 121. My grandmother's house 150 122. The lion in siesta 150 123. Stocktaking 151 124. Ethics 152 125. The rain 152 126. The joss-sticks at cadell road 153 127. My predecessor 154 128. The cobwebs 154 129. Note to a destroyer 154 130. A faded epaulet on his shoulder 155 131. A Widows lament 157 132. For cleo pascal 158 133. The summing up 159 134. A feminist's lament 160 135. Ode to quebec 161 136. Smudged mirrors 162 137. For auntie katie 163 138. Daughter of the century 164 139. A journey with no return 167 140. Mortal love 167 141. My dog 168 142. The moon 168 143. Another birthday 169 144. Forest fire 170 145. No noon at my village home 171 146. The cart horse 172 147. Annette 173 148. The testing of the sirens 174 149. Afterwards 176 150. Sepia 179 151. The blind walk 181 152. The eightysixth birthday 153. Evening at the old nalapat house